In my office at home where all this junk is written are 10 bookcases jammed with stuff. There are at least 22 shelves of insurance texts and references, plus a few more in the closet of old Claims or Insurance Adjuster magazines. That closet probably holds a better collection than National Underwriter Co. has — 30 years worth! Most of Pat Magarick's old law library is here, and a couple of shelves are my own tomes. (Pat was a columnist for Claims long before me.) Then there are the shelves of railroadiana, used as references in other articles that were published. There are six shelves of theological texts — another side interest — and shelves of histories, maps, mysteries, and miscellaneous, including more than a few first editions. Elsewhere in the house are other shelves of books, mostly mysteries, travel books, and down in the den are bookshelves shared with my wife, books we read for pleasure, and for the two book clubs we are in. In the kitchen, one cupboard is overflowing with cookbooks, and although I prefer to “cook by ear,” my wife follows recipes.

The Need for References

The trend away from references probably began 30 years ago. One day, there was a pile of books being thrown away from the company library's education department. The library was being converted to more cubicles, so something had to be sacrificed. I fished out and saved some of the old reference books and have used them periodically. An inveterate packrat, I don't mesh well with the “throw it out” generation that wants to keep desktops paperless and the cubicle uncluttered, putting everything on microfiche. When the Internet came along, bookcases disappeared from most offices, except mine. I still wanted my FC&S Bulletins in paper. After all, who wants to be in the middle of a report and have to run to the Internet to look up something when all that is necessary is to swivel the chair, pull out the correct volume, and look it up?

Each month, several law publications arrive at my office. How can adjusters function without such references? How do they know what the courts in their jurisdictions are ruling on regarding coverage and liability issues or modifying damage rules, without getting monthly or quarterly updates? Oh sure, the boss may attend a legal seminar once in a while and pass along the handouts for everyone to initial and send to the next cubicle. But that may be why we keep seeing the very same situations arise time after time in litigation. Nobody is paying attention to what the courts have already said.

Somewhere along the line some 30 or more years ago, the office manual contained a booklet called Investigation of Blasting Claims. It was small and yellow as I recall, and had pictures of various types of cracks in walls, some from settlement, some from impacts, and some from exterior blasting or explosions or earthquakes. It was most helpful, for every time there was a construction project that involved blasting, we could count on somebody alleging that it had caused their walls to crack. Ninety-nine times out of 99 and a half it was settlement cracks, but an adjuster wouldn't know that if he didn't inspect and know what to look for.

In one such claim, I'd retained a vibration engineer as an expert in the blasting damage litigation. He needed a statement from the contractor who had done the blasting, and told me what to ask. That statement, in great detail, was about 20 pages long when transcribed, based on the detailed instructions of what measurements to make (distances, etc.) and what photos to take, including geological details. Then the engineer revealed the formula he used to work up his figures. I wrote the formula down, and put it in the little yellow booklet, along with the list of questions to be covered and evidence to be obtained. We won the case, of course, and that was a treasured booklet along with the notes inside it for the next 20 plus years. It had to be left behind when I retired from the company, as it belonged to the company, but undoubtedly no one has looked at it or used it or the notes since. Those notes are a part of one of my textbooks now.

Maybe this kind of detail is available online. I don't know, I've never looked, although one of my textbooks is on Westlaw, and at least one insurer is apparently using it online as a virtual claim manual. But that's expensive stuff. The book itself is cheaper, and it is updated regularly. In the day-to-day handling of claims, it would seem that having some sort of reference like that at one's fingertips would be better than having to go online to get information that might not necessarily be geared to what the adjuster needs to know. If someone Googled “vibration damage,” something useful might pop up, though it is doubtful that it would be as useful as that little yellow booklet.

References and Education

Why use the Internet to look up stuff if a reference book is at your fingertips? I'm probably just old fashioned, an old dog to which new tricks cannot be taught. According to the Claims Education Magazine supplement that came with the November issue of Claims, the insurance industry is beginning to recognize that it has to start pushing good claim education again. Experienced adjusters of old are retiring, and with high turnover rates in the ranks of claim representatives, the quality level is steadily eroding.

Hopefully detailed textbooks will again take their place in that scheme of education. It has been awhile since I've reviewed what is required for the Insurance Institute of America's Associate in Claims program. When they were publishing all their own texts I used to get copies of all of them, but perhaps much of their required reading is now online. They are, after all, advertising their COMET Online Learning program as “a new approach to professional development.”

Donna Popow, CPCU, a senior director at the Institute, reported that in 2004, an Insurance Services Office survey found that 78 percent of insurance companies sought, “cost reduction in their claim-handling process as their most important goal for the year,” and that slightly more than half “singled out increased knowledge and staff training as key to improving claim handling.” She added, “Without the right blend of knowledge and skills, a less experienced and untrained claim staff may make costly errors.”

The old student's lament, “Got to go hit the books!” may no longer apply. If there is a 21st century equivalent, maybe it's “Gotta go hit the old Internet”? I'll stick to books, but supplement them with the Internet, getting the best of both worlds.

Ken Brownlee, CPCU, is a former adjuster and risk manager based in Atlanta, Ga. He now authors and edits claim-adjusting textbooks.